Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, April 28, 1998

1998-04-28 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Police Department got an earful about the proposal to put 300 more taxis on the city's streets last night, and one thing was clear: Almost nobody present was completely happy with the plan.

The conflicting views were aired at a special hearing convened by the department, which is considering issuing 300 more taxicab medallions. The move would increase the city's cab fleet by roughly 30 percent.

The proposal to put more cabs on the streets was recommended earlier this month by a 27-member taxi task force appointed by Mayor Willie Brown and chaired by Supervisor Gavin Newsom.

The department will weigh last night's testimony and documentary materials before deciding whether to issue some or all of the permits.

Almost every interest group represented at the hearing seemed to agree that San Francisco cab service is fraught with problems, but there was little agreement about what should be done to correct them.

Representatives of the city's hotel and restaurant industry complained about delays in taxi service that have cost the city tourist business.

They said the 300 new taxis now under consideration would barely be enough to improve things, and several suggested that even twice as many new cabs might not be enough.

"I have had to drive tourists back to their hotels myself after 2 1/2 hours when no cab shows up," said Colleen Meharry, a restaurateur who finds it next to impossible to get a cab dispatched to one of her businesses at Mission Rock.

Disabled and elderly residents complained about taxi no-shows -- even after repeated calls -- and about frequent delays in cab service in the city's neighborhoods. "I have to wait sometimes an hour and a half or even two hours for a cab," said Jose Santamaria, a disabled man who has taken to writing cooperative cab drivers' cell phone numbers down in his personal address book to insure reliable service.

Many drivers said putting 300 more cabs on the streets will make competition so fierce that seasoned drivers will be forced out of the business. "I'm scared to death of the number of cabs that have been proposed," said cab driver Keith Raskin.

Other drivers said no-shows and slow response times are caused by the city's hodgepodge of radio and computer dispatching systems, under which each company handles its own service calls and there is no effort to coordinate service citywide.

"If you want to improve the service, improve the technology and don't screw the workers," said David Schneider, a cab driver for nearly 18 years.